THE FISH THAT SWALLOWED JONAH.

Timaru Herald, Volume LV, Issue 5517, 20 September 1892, Page 3

THE FISH THAT SWALLOWED JONAH.

« (Home Paper.) There \ft no argument valid upot| a prem,iso of inherent impossibility- It used to lie qodt eluded beyond question that there were no black swans, bgoauge if jo impossible to con. peiyo a blacV Bwsn, But one harmless and unpqneojous jjlaok awon from thn Antipodes put all tbo ingenious thinkers to route Hume argued from his conception of a truo induction tbat (he major premise must include all poeeible cases. Thin bo thought conclusive against a great doal of popular belief. Bat what teat hare we of tbo possible ? It is harder to bolioro that wo have explored and classified the whole field of knowledge, than that a ravenous fish —with no higher and no lower thought m its mosgre brain than a plentiful dinner — nbould have swallowed and then discorgod a man. Boside*, wo are not without evidence that such piscine conduct m at least possible. Jonah was sailing m the Mediterranean— right along its whole length — from Joppa m

a } Faleatine to Tarehitb, m Spain ; and it is ia c this very sea that even at the present day a r huge fish, the white shark is found ; and not •, only this, but tho bones of a much larger 1 speoies now extinct. For the word used m • the Bible is a general term for a large fish, i and it inoludes m various writers, sharks, r tunnies, whsles, dolphins, and soals. Tim 1 White eh ark attains such a size that it has 0 bees known to woigb four tons and a half, s One that was exhibited last century over 9 Europo weighed nearly two tons, and very '. nearly re-enacted the part of Jonah's fish, r A British warveisel was sailing m the a Mediterranean when a man fell overt board. A huge shark instantly roae, nnd 1 the unlucky seaman disappeared within its t mouth. The captain fired a gun at it from s the deck, and as the shot struck upon its a back it cast the man out again, and he was » rescued by his companions. They forthwith ; harpooned the fish, dried him, end presented s him to hia intended victim. In th« beginning of this century a shark was taken at Surinam, and m it was discovered tho body of a woman excepting the head. Instances are recorded upon goad authority of specimens being found m tho same sea ; one with a seacalf m its stomach as big tt« an ox, another with a whole- horee, and another with two ' tunnies and a mon. That a man eauld live 1 there for a considerable time seems by no ■ moans impossible.